| International Image Theory argues that the interaction between perceived structural factors of intergroup relations determine outgroup images, which, in turn, are supposed to affect intergroup attitudes and foreign policy choices. In a set of studies we investigated whether the perception of a nation's power (experiment 1) and a view of a national outgroup that is consistent with a dependent image (experiment 2) could be experimentally manipulated via associative implicit priming. In a third experiment we primed participants with the ally, enemy, or dependent image of a country, and presented them with an intergroup conflict scenario between that country and the U.S. Results indicated that the differential induction of images leads to the preference towards policies and emotional reactions that are consistent with the primed image. |
